US Virgin Islands: Subnational Dekadal Rainfall and Anomalies (CHIRPS)

The World Food Programme (WFP) provides dekadal rainfall indicators for the United States Virgin Islands aggregated by subnational administrative units. The data utilizes CHIRPS v2 satellite imagery and CHIRPS-GEFS forecasts to track 10-day, 1-month, and 3-month precipitation totals and anomalies.

Use Cases

• Drought assessment using the 3-month rainfall anomaly (r3q) to identify long-term moisture deficits
• Short-term agricultural planning by filtering the type column for 10-day rainfall forecasts (rfh)
• Historical climate benchmarking by comparing current rainfall (rfh) against long-term averages (rfh_avg)

Strengths

• 9 distinct rainfall indicators including rolling 1-month and 3-month aggregations
• Standardized Pcode references for subnational administrative units
• Data quality transparency via n_pixels column for each aggregate

Limitations

• Temporal resolution is restricted to 10-day dekads rather than daily observations
• Satellite-derived CHIRPS data may contain estimation errors compared to local rain gauges

Provenance

Source

World Food Programme (WFP) using CHIRPS v2 and CHIRPS-GEFS

Collection Method

Satellite imagery (CHIRPS) combined with in-situ station data and GEFS forecasts

Freshness

Updated six times per month on a fixed cycle (1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st, and 26th).

Geography

United States Virgin Islands